New local political website
New local political website
Noon
A new local political website is starting up - bellinghambloggers.com. No content there yet, but the aspirations are excellent. Chris Renoud wants to run the site with integrity and cre
A new local political website is starting up - bellinghambloggers.com. No content there yet, but the aspirations are excellent. Chris Renoud wants to run the site with integrity and cre
Noon
A new local political website is starting up - bellinghambloggers.com. No content there yet, but the aspirations are excellent. Chris Renoud wants to run the site with integrity and credibility. No anon comments, for starters. He wants it to be a local public forum for many writers. He's using WordPress which is better than blogspot's Blogger - which most local sites use. Hell, he is stealing a march on me and the plans for this site.
And I'm delighted. We need online forums where we can exercise our freedom of speech in effective ways. In the early 1990s I saw the Internet as having this potential. It is the most liberal and populist of tools in that it does not require money or power to use and to be accessible by all citizens. We are still learning how to use it - and making mistakes along the way. The horrible anon comments on the Herald site is a good example of a mistake.
The link to Bellingham Bloggers is posted at the top of the right side column. I'll still complete my plans - hopefully in January. But a little competition is good for public dialog and this bodes well for 2008. Hope you get content posted soon, Chris.
11:10 am
The Herald online continues to be a joke. Here are a couple observations that you can check for yourself this morning. This sort of critique could be done most any day - and I encourage readers to bring a very critical eye to reading the Herald online.
The story of John Carter being confirmed of Thursday, Dec 20, has disappeared from the online past stories list. Yes, you can search the archives and find it. There was no lack of room and the story is a major one. But it has embarrassing elements attached to it - and that is explained below.
Note how the article on soldiers at Ft. Lewis is kept. Well, today's printed newspaper has a correction about that story. Seems 5,000 civilians will not be added by 2013. But the online version does not have the correction. So the Herald leaves up a story with a major error and deletes a story of high local interest. Why? Maybe one story was causing a problem. The Herald routinely deletes stories it has problems with. Poof. Gone. No more problem. But the real point is they knowingly leave up a story with major errors.
The deleted Carter story had over 20 comments posted to it - most critical of the appointment of Carter. That comment page is supposedly a resource the Herald provides online to its readers. Well, gentle reader, those comments exist no more from any link on the Herald. Poof. While you can find the original article by a search of their online archives, the comments are not saved.
This website gets criticized for not taking comments. Well at least I don't pull a dirty trick of allowing comments and then making them disappear on you. Keeping website material online for years is dirt cheap. I do it and this site is only a personal effort. The Herald could keep stuff accessible but apparently feels little responsibility to its readers to do so. Articles are available through the archives - and you pay dearly for older articles.
So the comments with false names that were the subject of yesterday's posts below are gone. Or are they? Well, they are still on the Herald's web servers - but you cannot get there from the Herald's own pages. But you can from here. Isn't the Internet wonderful? Check out Sam's article and you will see comments are up to 26. I guess you could even add a new one. And, of course, you can read my comments on Sam's article in permanent posts below on Dec 20. Who knows when my link will lead you to nada at the Herald. Maybe when the Herald editors see it.
A new local political website is starting up - bellinghambloggers.com. No content there yet, but the aspirations are excellent. Chris Renoud wants to run the site with integrity and credibility. No anon comments, for starters. He wants it to be a local public forum for many writers. He's using WordPress which is better than blogspot's Blogger - which most local sites use. Hell, he is stealing a march on me and the plans for this site.
And I'm delighted. We need online forums where we can exercise our freedom of speech in effective ways. In the early 1990s I saw the Internet as having this potential. It is the most liberal and populist of tools in that it does not require money or power to use and to be accessible by all citizens. We are still learning how to use it - and making mistakes along the way. The horrible anon comments on the Herald site is a good example of a mistake.
The link to Bellingham Bloggers is posted at the top of the right side column. I'll still complete my plans - hopefully in January. But a little competition is good for public dialog and this bodes well for 2008. Hope you get content posted soon, Chris.
11:10 am
The Herald online continues to be a joke. Here are a couple observations that you can check for yourself this morning. This sort of critique could be done most any day - and I encourage readers to bring a very critical eye to reading the Herald online.
The story of John Carter being confirmed of Thursday, Dec 20, has disappeared from the online past stories list. Yes, you can search the archives and find it. There was no lack of room and the story is a major one. But it has embarrassing elements attached to it - and that is explained below.
Note how the article on soldiers at Ft. Lewis is kept. Well, today's printed newspaper has a correction about that story. Seems 5,000 civilians will not be added by 2013. But the online version does not have the correction. So the Herald leaves up a story with a major error and deletes a story of high local interest. Why? Maybe one story was causing a problem. The Herald routinely deletes stories it has problems with. Poof. Gone. No more problem. But the real point is they knowingly leave up a story with major errors.
The deleted Carter story had over 20 comments posted to it - most critical of the appointment of Carter. That comment page is supposedly a resource the Herald provides online to its readers. Well, gentle reader, those comments exist no more from any link on the Herald. Poof. While you can find the original article by a search of their online archives, the comments are not saved.
This website gets criticized for not taking comments. Well at least I don't pull a dirty trick of allowing comments and then making them disappear on you. Keeping website material online for years is dirt cheap. I do it and this site is only a personal effort. The Herald could keep stuff accessible but apparently feels little responsibility to its readers to do so. Articles are available through the archives - and you pay dearly for older articles.
So the comments with false names that were the subject of yesterday's posts below are gone. Or are they? Well, they are still on the Herald's web servers - but you cannot get there from the Herald's own pages. But you can from here. Isn't the Internet wonderful? Check out Sam's article and you will see comments are up to 26. I guess you could even add a new one. And, of course, you can read my comments on Sam's article in permanent posts below on Dec 20. Who knows when my link will lead you to nada at the Herald. Maybe when the Herald editors see it.
